21/08/2015: Surveying the mycotoxin threat in Chinese corn in 2014

Corn with fungal infection (Image © Biomin)

In Eastern China, corn (maize) is one of the main crops cultivated and is the most frequently used animal feed ingredient in this region, write Paula Kovalsky and Shu Guan of Biomin on the Mycotoxins.info blog. The Chinese State Administration of Grain (SAG) predicted that "corn production in 2014-15 will be down by 3 million tonnes from the previous estimate due to summer drought damage in major corn producing provinces such as Henan, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning". They also stated that "in regions not affected by drought, most producing provinces reported higher-than-average quality."
  
A regional mycotoxin survey was conducted with 162 corn samples that were analysed from the harvest of 2013 and 2014 from the provinces of Anhui (5), Hebei (15), Henan (14), Heilongjiang (32), Hubei (9), Jiangsu (2), Jilin (19), Liaoning (31), Neimenggu (8), Shandong (9), Shanxi and Shaanxi (18).   

Figure 1: Provinces in focus: prevalence of mycotoxins as a percentage of total samples analysed in each region (>10 samples)

Main findings (Table 1):

• 94 percent of all corn samples from China were contaminated and almost three quarters contained two or more mycotoxins
• The most frequent mycotoxin was deoxynivalenol with 90 percent of positive samples and an average of 488 ppb
• Fumonisins was detected in more than two thirds of all Chinese corn samples at an average of 1425 ppb, a level that poses a health threat to swine which is one of the most sensitive species towards this toxin
• More than half of all corn samples were contaminated with the mycoestrogen zearalenone at an average of 108 ppb

Table 1: Mycotoxin occurrence in Chinese corn samples in 2014

Provinces in focus (Figure 1):

• In Hebei, all corn samples surveyed were contaminated with FUM at a high average of 2555 ppb. Also ZEN and DON (93 percent) were present at a high prevalence
• More than ¾ of all corn samples from Shanxi and Shaanxi were contaminated with DON and FUM at average levels of 819 ppb and 1477 ppb, respectively
• As predicted, Henan was the region most affected by mycotoxin contamination: FUM and ZEN were detected in all corn samples at the highest average values observed (4564 ppb and 254 ppb, respectively), DON was present in 93 percent of the samples at a high 850 ppb and also the highest prevalence and average of Afla (64 percent and 21 ppb) were recorded in this province
• The highest threat in the Northeast provinces of Heilongjang, Jilin and Liaoning was posed by DON as 94 percent, 95 percent and 87 percent of corn samples were contaminated, respectively. Also FUM was detected in more than 2/3 of samples from Jilin and Liaoning

Mycotoxin monitoring programs give an insight on what we can expect to find in raw materials and help to assess the possible effects that these toxic compounds can have in the animal industry

Visit the mycotoxins.info site HERE.

 

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